This paper will examine issues affecting the adoption of new technology and draw on examples of solutions devised within Monash University Libraries to take advantage of appropriate new technology while maximising existing services where these are still required .
All innovations, technological or otherwise, have some things in common though. They involve time (and time is money even if the innovation comes free of charge but usually it doesn't), effort and cause change. Initially there is a need for evaluation of the product or service. No library can afford to thoroughly evaluate every innovation. Nor can it afford to completely ignore most of them. Just as libraries use tools to assist in material selection, so we need tools to assist with the selection and evaluation of technology.
Technological change has always been with us. It's simply more obvious when the changes appear to move towards digitising entire libraries and/or utilising networks to make materials available to users, both local and remote. Users themselves expect more from our services. They want access to information wherever they are. No longer is it acceptable to have to visit a library, or to wait several weeks for a document to be delivered. Increasingly users expect to get what they need at the touch of a button, or the click of a mouse. Often their expectations have been raised by publicity or promotion of a product which is still in a pilot stage, and therefore cannot be met or may not be able to be met immediately.
Meanwhile libraries and library staff are grappling with shrinking budgets, ever-growing collections housed in non-expandable space, with the need to do more with less that we all seem to face. Going digital may seem an attractive solution to some of these problems. It requires hard decision-making to replace some paper-based services with digital solutions instead of using them as a supplement, which has previously been more common. Library users and staff, in many cases, do not wish to forego traditional modes of service-delivery they have grown used to, even if they embrace some newer technological alternatives. Others may wish to embrace every new service as it emerges and cannot understand the relatively slow pace of change they perceive around them. This dichotomy makes the task of integrating technologies in the library more difficult.
Until quite recently, say the last 3 years or so, most of the digitised services we added to our libraries complemented existing services and provided better access to our own collections. They also increased users' awareness of the limitations of our collections, hastening the adoption of yet more high-tech solutions to document access and delivery. Examples of this type of technology include the online catalogues and the numerous CDROM databases acquired at Monash. Services such as Business Periodicals On Disc go one step further, providing a full-text product.
Our hopes and aspirations have generally been way ahead of what the available technology could deliver. Recently technology has narrowed the gap considerably. Relatively fast, cheap and reliable networked services combined with more attractive user interfaces changed the way many people view information storage, retrieval and delivery. We can satisfy increasing numbers of user requests via rapid electronic delivery. We can elect to store some information electronically on-site, and/or to access local or overseas databases and document delivery services for others. CARL UnCover and Nexis provide this kind of service. Nexis has proved so popular at Monash that we have dedicated terminals in many branches.
Providing remote and local access to a service helps maximise its use. It can be available 24 hours a day to users with appropriate hardware and software. It also reduces some of the pressure on the library's staff and facilities.
In many institutions extra-mural access can be broken into two parts: access within the institution and access from outside the institution (modem or Internet). In an ideal world a single service would rill all users' requirements. In practice it is not so easy. Some types of services can be quite readily provided throughout the institution, but not so easily to the outside and it may be that the needs of each group differs. This leads to some interesting issues of choice or duplication of services.
Our method of CD-ROM database delivery reflects this. At most Monash campuses, there are CDs networked via Novell file servers - providing good access to library user, offices and laboratories, and rather poor access to modem users (if at all). At the Gippsland campus, however, similar services are provided via Gilbert (an OVID based solution running on a Unix server) which provides in-library, on-campus and modem access. Gippsland serves thousands of off-campus users, so this is the best solution for them.
At Monash, for example, we regularly have well over 220 connections to the library system for most of the working day, and a similar number of connections to the world wide web through our proxy server. The physical limits to the numbers of connections in these cases are quite high for example 400 in the case of the library system and, if they are reached, can be increased by the purchase of more hardware. This is a large investment but the cost per connection per year (averaging costs over the life of the system) is not all that high. When we look at networked CDs we can only allow/afford a small number of simultaneous users, less than 5% of those accessing the catalogue or WWW in most cases. Increasing the number of simultaneous users involves negotiating a new license arrangement with the vendor.
There are other ways to improve access/delivery of course. At Monash we have begun to use the interactive nature of world wide web an a number of ways. Our Document Delivery Unit has an online request form which simplifies record-keeping for library staff and allows users to fill in a form whenever and wherever they like. The Document Delivery Unit is also developing some in-house forms such as inter-campus delivery requests which will help speed up the service. We have a similar form for library users which is attached to wwwlib, the web-based front end to our library system. We also provide online reservation of library materials, and online renewals.
In conjunction with the Information Systems Centre we are developing an automated telephone-renewal service as part of a suite of library-based information available through a 1-900 number. Services such as Nexis and UnCover provide rapid document delivery, for a fee. We've provided services like these (but paper-based and mail-bound) for a long time, the change here is mostly to do with speed of delivery.
Looking around, it is difficult to find services which have saved large amounts of money, although the cancellation of an expensive paper-based abstracting or indexing service in favour of commercial online access is one example. There are many examples of technological solutions providing additional benefits which more than outweigh any additional cost. Monash examples include Sesame2 (the integrated online system) which allows modes of access and service improvements in areas such as serials management and student reading which were not possible without the system.
At Monash, we have just begun providing networked workstations within libraries and hope to integrate them with other library services rather than adding another set of workstations for users to access. We are also providing remote access to other libraries from OPAC terminals (this service is not available to non-Monash users). On a smaller scale, each time we subscribe to an electronic journal or other service not previously available in non-digital format, we are adding a new service. We treat these additions in the same way as any other new subscription, and subject them to the same selection criteria.
Integrated library systems fall into this category. Libraries will often replace the card catalogue with an online one without more than a passing thought (if all the records are in the online one), but agonise when an online service is added that duplicates a paper-based index or abstract. Why is this so one may ask. Monash is something of an exception here, with the Clayton branches hanging onto their card catalogues but that's because the quality of many online records is so poor. The card shelflist has closed.
Upgrades fall into several categories. The most obvious involve purchasing more hardware or installing a new release of an existing system. Upgrading can also include things such as giving the system a face-lift - so that it appears different while still functioning the same way underneath. World-wide-web interfaces to library systems such as wwwlib fall into this category. This has given Monash library a chance to continue using what is an extremely powerful old-style library system with an attractive and intuitive user-interface.
Less obvious, but becoming more common, is the use of two or more online products to provide the same service, perhaps to different groups of users. Sometimes this is unavoidable. For example, at Monash, at the time of writing, undergraduate students do not generally have access to off-campus telnet. This means we must provide all their bibliographic services in a format they can access on-campus. More particularly it means they cannot use any of the CAUL databases, even when these are relevant to undergraduates. Our solution is to provide networked CD-ROM databases as well as some online subscriptions. Thus, for some databases, Monash library is providing access to the same service in 3 different ways. It's necessary because it's the only way we can service all of our users at this time.
Libraries have traditionally used off the shelf solutions whenever they could. Many use a standard classification scheme, for example. Many catalogue on ABN. Relatively few use an in-house library system.
Some locally-produced services can be sold to others, alleviating part of the development costs, or possibly making a profit. ALLI has always had a commercial aspect and is now available via KIWINET, LEXIS and Computer Law Services cd-roms.
This method protects our existing investment, which may be very substantial. It has the added advantage of providing several access methods to the same service in some cases. Obviously it will be cheaper to write a new front end than it will to develop a new system, or even to implement one in many cases. Tools for this type or work are now readily available, cheap, and often easy to use.
There are several benefits to this approach. Staff and users are already familiar with an existing system, so an additional feature should be relatively easy to introduce. Initially, at least, there may be no need for a further outlay on hardware or software.
Monash, like many other libraries, has adopted a wide variety of technological solutions in the past. As far as practicable, the number of user interfaces and search engines has been kept to a minimum. Even so, a wide variety of interfaces had to be used to fulfill the range of services required. More recent developments such as web browsers and z39.50 clients are allowing us to begin consolidating some of these interfaces. At the moment we are using WWW and wwwlib in particular as the nucleus of what will hopefully grow into a common user interface for many of Monash Library's information services.
With wwwlib we are able to utilise the existing library database and search engine through a series of web cgi programs. We have also built on existing work with the imaging project to include scanned images of Reserve materials as URLs within the sesame database. These are converted to hot-links and users can display them within their web browser using a locally-developed tiff viewer. Through hot-links (any URL in a catalogue record is converted to a hot-link in wwwlib) we are able to provide direct links to any local or remote resources we deem of value to our users. We are also incorporating easier self-renewal of material on loan, and user-requesting of materials held at other campuses.
Using the web as the basis of a common user interface (or at least a common jumping off point) has a number of advantages for Monash. It is platform independent so we are catering to a wide range of users. A great deal of Windows-based software is freely available which fits in with the university's PC and Windows-based technology strategy. Web browsers such as Netscape facilitate access because our users are often familiar with the interface and because of the ease of adding on viewer applications. We have the flexibility to change the interface easily, and we are not creating additional searchable databases of materials held by Monash - the library system is still the main search tool, with the addition of a small amount of data to bibliographic, item or serial records. Links to other databases or search engines can be easily incorporated as and when required.
We are very pleased with the development so far and will explore ways of integrating other services and expanding the idea of a common user-interface. We will continue to use existing products and services and adopt off-the shelf-products for new or improved services where these fill our requirements. We will also develop new products when nothing suitable is available, endeavouring to build on existing systems and products at the same time.